On 25 August, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) released a consultation letter to ADIs and registered financial corporations (RFCs) regarding a number of proposed changes to the updated Economic and Financial Statistics (EFS) reporting standards and guidance. The letter and proposed changes are available on the
APRA website.
The EFS data collection framework has been developed by APRA, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in collaboration with ADIs and RFCs.
The ASF contributed to this process by making a
submission in May 2019 (to which APRA responded in its
letter in June 2019) with a key focus on the consolidation of securitisation SPVs for EFS data collection purposes and the alignment of reporting periods. APRA's proposed changes in the consultation letter will formalise their acceptance of the industry’s preference for the EFS reporting period to align with an entity's end of financial year reporting date which we believe is a positive step for the industry.
The key proposed change to EFS that the ASF wishes to highlight to members is a proposed drop in the threshold from $6bn to $3bn under ARS743 (Housing Finance) which may lead to more entities having to report under the new framework.
Additionally we note that a number of the questions raised by the ASF in their initial submission have not been addressed by the proposed consultation letter, and therefore the ASF would recommend that members speak with their advisers for any specific guidance on how the EFS changes may impact your organisation or alternatively reach out to your APRA representative.